Andrew Bird explored superstition, history, science, and mystery with his own unique blend of jazz and folk on this lush and lyrical dreamspell. 'Armchair Apocrypha' builds on the advances of his previous album 'The Mysterious Production Of Eggs' with Bird collaborating with drummer and electric pianist Martin Dosh. Bird explains: "It was quite a bit different. I think the first song we recorded was 'Plasticities', which Martin Dosh and I had just started playing together. That was one of the first songs where we were just experimenting with us both looping and combining our distinct universes with each other. We went into Third Ear [Studio] in Minneapolis and recorded basically what we do live, which is him building a loop on drums while I'm building a loop on violin—which is a risky way to go. You don't have as much control, but we thought, 'This is working really well live, so let's just try it like we do it [on stage].' And it worked out really well. There were a lot of things we couldn't fix because of the way we did it. But I've just learned that you never know which approach is going to work, so I try every possible one and see which one's the best. That can be a bit grueling and can take a while. But this one was a little more… I was determined to get more of the ecstasy that comes in a live show, and more of the zinging out that I do in a live show, the feverishness that comes over me onstage. It's really hard to get in that state of mind in an empty studio in a basement in Minneapolis in February. But we did everything we could to create that bigger sound. 'Eggs' had an intimacy to the vocals which worked just fine for that record, but it's generally not an aesthetic that I'm a big fan of—that sound of a voice right in your ear, whispering quietly. It's just not the way I like to sing. That's the difference right there. And there's Dosh's input on stuff, his style of playing...I have a know-it-when-you-hear-it approach to things, and I know so much what I don't want to hear, so a lot of stuff ends up on the cutting-room floor. But going into this record, I did have a conscious desire to really stretch out some of the melodies and vocalize, instead of having sort of a dense rambling of lyrics. To stretch things out but not have it feel sleepy. So there's a longer arc to a lot of phrases—'Dark Matter' or 'Armchair Apocrypha' are probably the best examples of that. Trying to create a beam of sound with your voice, that was a conscious goal."
Co-produced by Ben Durrant, the sessions took place at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, MN; Crazy Beast Studio in Northeast Minneapolis; Third Ear Recording, Minneapolis; and Electrical Audio and Wall2Wall Recording in Chicago with Andrew Bird on violin, vocals, whistling, guitar, and glockenspiel; Haley Bonar on vocals; Jon Davis on bass clarinet; Martin Dosh on drums, electric piano, and other sounds; Ben Durrant on guitar; Chris Morrissey on bass; Kevin O'Donnell on drums; and Jeremy Ylvisaker on guitar. 'Armchair Apocrypha' went to number seventy-six on the US album chart and sold over one hundred thousand copies.
http://www.andrewbird.net/
Fiery Crash
Imitosis
Dark Matter
Armchairs
bonus tracks:
Sic of Elephants (Sycophantitis)
Self-Torture (The Water Jet Cilice)
'Armchair Apocrypha'
full album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K8lVfnzByY
1. 00:00 "Fiery Crash"
2. 04:09 "Imitosis"
3. 08:04 "Plasticities"
4. 12:27 "Heretics"
5. 15:55 "Armchairs"
23:00-34:34 (silence)
6. 34:34 "Darkmatter"
7. 39:38 "Simple X" (Bird, Martin Dosh)
8. 43:13 "The Supine"
44:14-46:36 (silence)
9. 46:36 "Cataracts"
10. 49:45 "Scythian Empires"
11. 54:15 "Spare-Ohs"
12. 58:30 "Yawny at the Apocalypse"
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